What a superb day I had today. My princess is a Brownie and of course it's Girl Scout Cookie time across the Nation. No longer do you just bother family, friends and neighbors - you have to sign up to work booths in your neighborhood. My daughter has a craft store booth next weekend and had the Wa-Wa booth today. Next week's booth shift is 2 hours. Today's shift was 4 hours. Since my wife and I are dividing this task between the two of us, I deemed the customers at a craft store to be much safer than the random crowd that stops in at a Quick-Stop type store like Wa-Wa in the morning. Heck, when I was young, sometimes we were stopping at Wa-Wa in the AM for what we wanted folks to think was breakfast, but in reality, we never made it home yet from the night before. I'll never forget the night (morning?) Vailler and myself walked (stumbled) home from The Rat in West Chester and decided we were hungry. We went into a Wa-Wa and came out the proud owners of 2 cans of Chef Boyardee Cheese Ravioli. We made it back to his place and opened the cans and ate the contents at room temperature - right out of the cans. Damn that seems like so long ago yet I remember it very vividly. Anyway, you get my point. There would be a lot of cash involved and my Spidey Sense was telling me I should go. It was about 36 degrees this morning when we started at 9:45 AM but it warmed up to a balmy 42 before we were done. I got bad information from weather.gov and did not dress approriately to be outside for 4 hours. The 5 workers at Wa-Wa bought a combined ONE box of cookies. This is no lie, the 4 of us in the booth bought from Wa-Wa: 5 hot chocolates, 1 44 oz Diet Coke, 1 bag of sour worms, 1 bag of Swedish fish, 1 bagel with cream cheese, 1 Jr. Ham & Cheese Club, 1 Classic Turkey & Swiss, 1 Icee. Did I say they bought 1 box of cookies? Good for them. Anyway, I should have been an anthropologist as I simply love to watch people. From what I could tell, the following groups would all be represented: those who buy happily, those who buy begrudgingly, those who say "No, thank you" very politely and keep going, those who feel they have to tell a lie (I would buy some, but my husband has TagALongOpia and kills puppies and kitties if he eats just one cookie), those who grunt in place of saying "No", those who walk right past without even acknowledging the cute girls who asked very politley, those who notice the girls on the left of the entrance and go out of their way to enter the door on the other side and finally - those who slow down pulling into the lot and then turning and burning rubber at the sight of the familiar sashes around our girl's shoulders. We cut the 4 hours 20 minutes short as we hit 100 boxes plus $10 in cash donations to send boxes to Iraq (for the troops, not the camels). The girls did very well and were very polite. They even said "Thanks anyway" when they were turned down. Since this was my first time selling at the entrance of a store, it gave me great insight for the next time I have to pass a group like this. The thing that is appreciated the most if you don't want to buy? A very upbeat "Aw, thanks, but my ______ is a ________ and I (am selling them myself OR already bought some) but good luck today!". A few people just gave $1 instead of buying. I'm not even sure they realize thats what goes to Iraq. So, the lesson for today - if you don't intend on buying - don't crush these little girls by walking right past them. Karma is a bitch. Ask Bill Belichick.
